Using a radio system, a user can receive radio waves broadcast from a radio station and provide an audio output associated with the received radio waves. An electronic device having communications circuitry appropriate for receiving broadcast radio waves can receive radio broadcasts from several sources. For example, several terrestrial radio stations can broadcast signals with sufficient strength to reach the user's electronic device. As another example, satellite radio stations can broadcast signals over large geographic regions. As still another example, Internet radio stations can provide broadcast signals that may be received by any device having an Internet connection. Each radio station can broadcast any suitable media, such as music or talk shows. In particular, different radio stations can broadcast media of a particular type, such as music stations broadcasting music from a particular era, of a particular genre, or by a specific artist (e.g., the U2 station on satellite radio).
Because of the large number of radio stations available to a user, some radio devices can recommend specific radio stations as being of interest to a user. To determine the user's preferences, the radio devices a series of questions to identify the user's interests (e.g., direct the user to rank genres or identify particular artists or songs of interest), monitor attributes of the radio stations and media items to which a user listens, or receive from a second source 20 metadata describing attributes of particular media items to which a user listens. While these approaches can be used to provide radio station recommendations, either they require the user either to affirmatively provide recommendations, or a history of prior media consumed by the user.